Twitter went crazy recently after the Detroit Lions selected running back Jeff Hoard out of Central Michigan University.

Scott Wright, the founder of Draft Countdown.com, tweeted, “Jeff Hoard has the skill set to make all the plays at the halfback position.” Others sports personalities like Skip Bayliss and Chris Mortensen had high hopes for Lions after the draft.

Of course, these weren’t the real people but virtual versions reporting constant news and analysis throughout the season in EA Sports’ Madden NFL 13, now available for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and PS Vita. This inclusion of social media is a part of one of the biggest overhauls we’ve seen in years for a Madden title.

Gone are the traditional Superstar and offline and online franchise modes. These are now blended together in the all-new Connected Careers mode, where you can create a player or coach, take over the career of a current coach or player, or relive the glory days as Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice and other legendary players and coaches by starting their careers from scratch. You can do all this on your own or with up to 32 others online, with the main goal of becoming one of the best.

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To achieve that goal as a player, you’ll need to gain experience points to purchase attribute upgrades. Unfortunately, this a very slow process. Each week you can choose from a variety of situational practice scenarios from a 2-minute drill to playing a full game. Successfully completing them will earn you the allotted XP, but it’s not much. As a running back, I kept practicing a full game to get 1,000 XP a week, since upgrading each attribute costs thousands of points. Player progression is much slower than in past games.

What doesn’t help either is the lack of playing time a created player receives. Since I chose to be a running back on the Lions, I started off third on the depth chart. The only action I got my first season was returning kickoffs and punt returns. Achieving milestones during games awards XP as well, but I hardly earned any by sitting on the bench. Since you simulate through games when your player’s not on the field, I was stuck watching the Lions lose late in the season to miss the playoffs with a 9-7 record. As the second season began, I was moved right behind Jahvid Best for the top spot, and even got a lot of playing time in preseason action. Despite my dominating performances of multi-touchdown games, I still was stuck on kickoff and punt return duty. The only way to boost my overall stats to hop over Best is to gain XP, but I couldn’t get it fast enough since I was hardly on offense.

I should point out that my experience could differ from others. Each team has its needs position-wise, so I could have possibly started on another team that needed a running back. So my situation may not happen to others, but be wary of it.

As a coach, it’s a whole new ball game. You’re in control of everything on and off the field, including signing free agents to whatever money you think they’re worth, cutting players during the preseason and going through a list of trade offers. XP can be used toward improving specific types of positions and even making players less likely to retire. It’s a very expansive mode that’ll please the hardcore fans. I just wish there was a more streamlined menu design to quickly do everything.

The real-time physics engine EA Sports has been hyping up, the Infinity Engine, is a welcome addition to Madden. Finally we get more realism when comes to tackling players and fighting for more yardage. Running to close to a blocker could result in stumbling over their feet, and accidently bumping into the quarterback can mess things up in a hurry. Big linebackers will pummel smaller receivers and backs. Everything plays out much more naturally, something past Madden titles failed to achieve.

Still, there are many moments after plays where players will be stumbling over each other and flopping to the ground, providing a little comedy show. It’s especially noticeable during slow-mo instant replays where limbs are flailing around. Fortunately, none of this impacted gameplay.

Other tweaks and additions to boost realism include new passing trajectories to throw the ball where you want. Receivers are now aware when to catch a ball instead of automatically knowing it’s coming. On defense, the AI will only swat away passes they can see.

The Xbox 360 version features Kinect support. You can make audibles, call timeouts, challenge plays and bark out other options with your voice. It’s hit or miss really. I had to repeat a few things since the Kinect didn’t hear it, but it’s a nice option to have if people prefer it.

Presentation-wise, EA Sports made Madden NFL 13 look like watching an actual football game on Sunday (or Monday or Thursday). Flashy in-game graphics will pop up during the game to reveal stats about players. There’s plenty of instant replay camera angles showing off big plays. The virtual Twitter feed and top stories change every week, offering in-depth details on what’s going on around the league. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms are a much-needed refresh in the broadcast booth. Their commentating matches the gameplay pretty well, although you’ll hear repeated lines over time, which is expected. They’ll even tell us to buy Papa John’s Pizza and Gatorade. Get ready to hear a lot of in-game advertising.

The main menu is clean and easy to navigate. Other game modes include the popular Madden Ultimate Team, where you collect cards to build your own fantasy team, and the Gridiron Club, which offer features like Madden Moments Live where you can play through the real NFL season’s best games and moments. Of course, online play is there, too.

Every year Madden comes out, there’s always that clichéd line “It’s just another roster update.” Obviously they’ve been more than that, but for Madden NFL 13 it’s much, much more. The all-new Connected Careers mode and Infinity Engine are great ways at innovating a franchise heading into what could be a new generation of consoles next year. While there are some kinks to be worked out, the overall effort EA Sports put into this game shows us a promising future.

3 stars out of 4

A copy of Madden NFL 13 for the Xbox 360 was supplied by EA for this review.